Automotive navigation systems have been available for a number of years and are designed to guide vehicle operators to a specified destination. A major shortcoming of conventional navigation systems relates to the methods of entering target destinations. It is well known that driver distraction occurs when a vehicle operator interacts with a keypad or a touch screen while driving. In fact, first time users typically become frustrated with the human factors and associated learning necessary to enter target destinations manually. Furthermore, existing systems allow users to enter destination while driving, which has been shown to cause driver distraction. Entering an address or point of interest (POI) by using manual methods typically requires time and concentration on the vehicle operator's part, and in particular, one cannot watch the road or drive safely. There is ongoing pending litigation that relates to driver distraction and the use of navigation systems while driving.
For most in-vehicle navigation systems, there are sequential steps that occur during usage. The process begins with user interaction where the navigation system first determines the starting location, usually from GPS information. The target destination is typically entered as an address, a street intersection, or a point of interest. It would be a substantial advancement in the art to provide a menu-driven, automatic voice recognition system located at a remote data center that would recognize spoken target destinations while simultaneously utilizing GPS information transmitted from the vehicle over a wireless link to the remote data center. It would also be a significant advancement to provide a voice user interface that is designed to minimize vehicle operator interaction time and/or data center operator interaction time. Finally, it would be a significant advancement if target destinations could be determined with high reliability and efficiency by utilizing the combination of GPS information, voice automation technology, operator assistance, and user assistance for confirming that the specified destination is correct. When necessary, the operator would be involved in determining the target destination that has been spoken, and the vehicle operator (the user) would confirm that the spoken destination is correct before the data center operator becomes involved. An automatic speech recognizer, high-quality text-to-speech, and GPS information each play a role in the overall process of determining a target destination.